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Re: Nasty language semantics (Was: error message I don understand) [message #174921 is a reply to message #174917] Mon, 18 July 2011 08:22 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Tim Streater is currently offline  Tim Streater
Messages: 328
Registered: September 2010
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Senior Member
In article <ivvorv$19k$1(at)dont-email(dot)me>,
August Karlstrom <fusionfile(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On 2011-07-18 00:06, Tim Streater wrote:
>> Also at the time academics were pushing the
>> single-entry-single-exit bullshit, so there was no return statement.
>
> I guess a certain level of maturity is required to appreciate some of
> these "restrictions". The return statement goes against the idea of a
> truly structured goto-less programming language. Wirth introduced the
> return statement (tried it) in Modula-2 and in the first versions of
> Oberon but replaced it with a return clause (single exit point) in
> Oberon-07. Here is a quote by Niklaus Wirth from "Differences between
> Oberon-07 and Oberon"*:
>
> "The result of a function procedure was specified by a return statement.
> This form has the unpleasant property that the return statement is
> syntactically disconnected from the function procedure declaration,
> similar to the exit from the loop statements. It is therefore difficult
> to check, whether or not a function procedure declaration specifies a
> result, or perhaps even several of them. Now the result specification
> becomes syntactically a part of the procedure declaration, and vanishes
> as an independent statement form."

Mmm, and code becomes unreadable as a result, with lots of extra if-else
nesting to try to ensure that from a given point where I would do a
return, no more code is going to be executed in the function. Unreadable
because I have to spend a long time convincing myself that no more code
will, in fact, be executed.

I haven't used a goto since 1978 when I gave up writing FORTRAN. Oh
wait, tell a lie, there was a period when I had to, since I was obliged
to write in Pascal and there was no return statement. So I faked one by
labelling the end of the function with 999: and then doing goto 999.

Thank God that piece of impractical nonsense has gone the way of the
Dodo. Early return simplifies code; I regard it as my responsibility to
ensure I return the right thing.

--
Tim

"That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" -- Bill of Rights 1689

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